FOR SOME ARTISTS, IT ALL BEGINS WITH A LOVE OF DRAFTSMANSHIP

by Edward M. Gómez

Who remembers high-school geometry class? A line is infinite in length, but a line segment has a fixed measurement. A ray is a line that extends infinitely in one direction from a particular point. Lines drawn from point to point in groups of three or more points form shapes. And let’s not even get started on trapezoids, rhomboids, and hypotenuses.

A point or a dot might be the most basic mark anyone can ever make, but a group of contiguous points or dots creates another fundamental kind of mark — a line. Ever since, in prehistoric times, caveperson A walked next door to the home of caveperson B to ask for help drawing a bison or a bird on his or her own cave’s interior walls, humans have understood the expressive power of line to decorate, to depict subjects in the perceived world, and to represent the imaginary.